I have just retarned from Peking and am surprised to see the road bed of the Peking and Kalgan railway apparently complete for nearly all the way from the Nankou Pass to Kalgan. The bridge piers also are completed in all the water courses, and look very substantial structures, being solid mason-work, broken reck I
The bridge over the river at. Huai has nine piers. The ruins of the old stone bridge for carts stands near by, high and dry, as both ends have been washed away, and the river has made course for itself far to one side.
Of course it is the difficult mountain passes that are hardest to finish. But the last and longest tunnel, 3,750 feet in length, which goes under the Great Wall near Chatao is nearly finished the rock having been finally pierced and the two ends brought together about! June 1, And the fact that the two cuts meet exactly to line proves the skill of the engineers in charge.
Heiangshaipa, about 200 north of the Pass, they have a task quite equal to a tunnel in cutting away the rock to make a road beside the river which washes the foot of the mountain rising almost perpendicularly 500 fect above. There is also another small pass near Kalgan yet to be cut The rails are now laid and construction trains are run about half way through the Navkon Pass 130 li from Peking. They say they will have the road finished next year. Possibly they may, if they will put on men enough, and have the money to pay them and bay the material necessary; rails ete. And I for one shall be glad to ride comfortably to Peking in half a day,|* instead of suffering tive days in a cart or litter or on horse-back or male-back, I have every year for over thirty years. Still two ladies, missionaries' children, coming back to Kalgan after twenty years absence, were glad to come: before the railroad was finished, so as to renew their childhood experiences of riding in a mule-litter, with plenty of time to watch the camels and donkeys, and to enjoy the mountain views, and oather flowers by the wa After two weeks of moderately warm weather, we are now having several days of cool rains. There is a fair prospect for good late grain crops.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.